Disappearing Dark Skies

Disappearing Stars

By Alex Turner

“… Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map …”
-- Vincent van Gogh, 1889

The light pollution problem What comes to mind when you think about America’s national parks? Rivers, mountains, geysers – the special geological features that make each park unique. Oftentimes we are focused on preserving the environment we can see during the daylight, but we tend to take the inky night-time skies for granted. Some of our country’s darkest skies exist over the national parks, revealing a wondrous view of the Universe.

But, as our electricity-run world turns on more lights, it sacrifices more stars. About 2,500 stars should be visible to the naked eye on a clear night, but most people in U.S. cities can count the stars they can see on their two hands. One hundred years ago our home galaxy, the Milky Way, was visible from nearly anywhere in the world. Now, nearly 80 percent of North Americans cannot catch even a glimpse of it.

The light pollution problem prompted the National Park Service to form a Night Sky Program in 2009, 400 years after Galileo turned his telescope to the stars. The program allows park rangers and volunteer night-sky specialists to teach visitors about preservation of our starry sky and how to gaze at it with and without the help of telescopes.

“As I always mention in my presentations, ‘Education is the key to unlock doors of opportunity,’” Hotka said. In addition to learning about the night sky, visitors of all ages had fun viewing 3D-images of Pluto and learning about Ball’s work on NASA’s New Horizons and Kepler/K2 missions. Ball Outreach Manager Denise Henry shared the discoveries of these programs with families during the day and gave an evening presentation on New Horizons. STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) outreach such as this brings awareness to night sky preservation while fostering student interest in STEM careers.